Let us pray: May these words be your words, this message your message, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Are we there yet? How much longer? Will we EVER get there? I’m SO ready to be home already! I imagine you’ve heard these words, or uttered them in exasperation yourself, plenty of times. We want to be there, to arrive. And we especially want to know how long the wait is. Waiting is the worst. Especially when you have no idea how long it will be.
Today’s parable is all about waiting. Here, towards the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has been talking about the Kingdom, or as I prefer, the KINdom of heaven. That realization of God’s dream for us. The return of Jesus. The grand coming together. The healing, reconciling, saturating power of God’s love realized in our world. Jesus’ disciples and those who are gathering to listen to his teachings, all want to know, how much longer? When will this be, this end of the age, this coming of the Son of Man, this kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven? And so, Jesus answers them with this parable about a wedding feast.
In Jesus’ time, wedding guests would gather at the home of the bride to be entertained while everyone waited for the groom to arrive. When the bridegroom was close, the bridesmaids and the guests would go out to greet him. And with their lamps lit, they would form a procession to the groom’s house for the ceremony and the multiple day feast! The job of the bridesmaids was to greet the groom and light the path to the wedding location. They needed to be ready and alert, their lamps filled with oil, their wicks trimmed.
In this parable, for some unknown reason, the bridegroom is late, very late, and everyone ends up falling asleep, their lamps burning through plenty of oil while they snoozed. Then, suddenly, a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then they got up and trimmed their lamps. But only those who had brought extra oil could refill their lamps. And when they asked the others to share, they replied, ‘No! there won’t be enough for you and for us; go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And so, off they went. But while they were away the bridegroom arrived, and they processed to the wedding banquet, closing the gate and doors behind them. Finally, the other bridesmaids showed up, but were refused at the door. Sorry, the ceremony’s already started, no admittance after the show has begun. Bummer. They are out and the others are in.
Hmm. Now what does all this mean for us, here and now, today. Well, at the end of the parable Jesus tells us: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait to see God’s dream for our world come to fruition. These things are beyond us. We can’t possibly figure out when Jesus will return again in glory. But…what we can do, is figure out how to wait expectantly and hopefully. John Buchanan, in his commentary puts it well: “The point is living expectantly. Christian hope rests on trust that the God who created the world will continue to love the world with gentle providence, will continue the process of creation until the project is complete, and will continue to redeem and save the world by coming into it with love and grace in Jesus Christ” (Buchanan, John M., in “Feasting on the Word” Year A, Vol. 4, p. 286).
And so we do our best to wait in hope, reminding ourselves and one another of the character of our good and loving God. Working to place our trust in God’s grace, forgiveness, and compassion. And we do our best to prepare and make the best of the time we have to wait. We do our best to be wise and to bring along extra oil. In this parable, the bridegroom is Jesus and the wedding feast is his coming again in glory at the end of time. The bridesmaids are all of us. And the oil, the oil can be considered our reserves of faith, our experiences growing and learning and coming closer to our loving God. While we do share some of these moments together, they are also very personal as well, our own understanding of the divine throughout our life’s experiences. As such, they can’t be shared in the way that I can’t just simply pass on my faith to you. I can try. And I can certainly tell you all about it. But my faith can’t be your faith, my experiences with the divine your experiences with the divine. You’ll have to go and search out that oil for yourself. And the time for doing that building, that searching, and that growing is now! Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate. It might be too late. You might show up after the show’s already started! There are some things with expiration dates, like apologizing to a good friend, or sharing your true feelings with someone you love, or showing up to care for someone who really needs you now. These opportunities can expire. Don’t wait.
Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told the crowds: “…Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). We wait expectantly with hope and we light the way for others by sharing God’s love through works of mercy and caring. In this way we light the path, forming the procession with our own lamps shining God’s love through how we live. In this way we not only keep our own oil stock of faith full, but we also work to participate in the in-breaking, creation, and realization of God’s dream. By preparing, sharing, and shining now, we shine God’s light onto the paths of others as we wait in hopeful expectation for the great wedding banquet. Keep awake! Keep your oil stocked up and build up reserves of faith. Shine your light, God’s reflection of love showing through you. And in so doing we will work together to create the KINdom of God here and now. And then, finally, finally, we will be there.
Amen.
